“Most actors realize that Val is different from the eyes,” Stone said in a 2007 interview with the TV series Biography. Dramat and screenwriter David Mamet directed Mr. Kilmer to the political thriller Spartan (2004), adding: “Val's work as an actor is something that a real, very good actor has, which makes everything sound like improvisation.”
On screen, he is both charming and curious, and he doesn't let his character radiate emotional clues easily. On screen, he had all kinds of differences, especially early in his career, when he was known for his gel and self-inflicting. A cover article about him published in Entertainment Weekly in 1996 was titled “Hollywood men like to hate.”
“He was hard to understand and offend people,” said Mr. Stone. Robert Downey Jr.
“I'm sure this can't be his long-term weird news for you,” Mr. Downey said.
Born in Los Angeles on December 31, 1959, Val Edward Kilmer grew up near Cathsworth, the city's far northwest. His neighbors were Roy Rogers, Dale Evans and his high school classmates were Kevin Spacey and Mare Winningham. His father, Eugene, a real estate developer and his mother, former Gladys Ekstadt, divorced when Val was 9 years old. His younger brother Wesley drowned in a swimming pool in 1977, an incident that has plagued Mr. Kilmer for many years later.
His memory of this loss is at the center of his performance in The Salton Sea (2002), where he was under the guise and seeking redemption after witnessing his wife murder and unable to save her. “There are a few points in the movie that can't continue. It wasn't until about two or three years after my brother's death that I really returned to Earth.”
He applied to Juliad School in New York and became one of the youngest students ever at the age of 17. In Juilliard, he and several classmates wrote “How Everything Started”, adapted from the autobiography of Michael Baumann, a West German urban guerrilla guerrilla. In 1981, after Mr. Kilmer graduated, he participated in professional works in public theaters.
